Concerned about losing their affordable apartments, tenants at Lakeview Towers, 4550 N. Clarendon Ave., in Uptown pulled together and bought their own building Tuesday paying $500,000 in cash and assuming a $22 million federally-insured mortgage for the property, a 500-unit complex of two 25-story towers facing Lake Michigan.
Tenants will be celebrating their purchase Wednesday with an 11 AM ribbon-cutting ceremony in front of the building. Speakers will include area elected officials, and representatives from Illinois Housing Development Authority and US. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
The cash portion of the transaction came from the Illinois Housing Development Authority (IHDA), the local non-profit Jewish Council on Urban Affairs and from the tenants themselves. The tenants purchased the 32-year-old complex from Lakeview Towers Preservation Corp., an affiliate of the local community development corporation Voice of the People.
In the building, 395 of the units offer federal rental assistance and the remaining 105 units are set aside at fair market rents for households with incomes between $40,000 and $60,000 per year.
Financing come from IHDA, who put up $675,000 in a 40-year, zero percent loan; a pre-development loan of $58,000 also at no interest from the Community Ventures Program of the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs and from tenants who raised $8,700 through $100 loans from each of 87 resident families.
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